Another Lunch and Weekend Option @ Karlene's

[jaxlore]

Times Union had a write up will have to check it out for lunch one day. Any one else tried it?

http://jacksonville.com/entertainment/2009-06-04/story/review_karlenes_deli_is_a_treat_for_the_taste_buds

Frugal workers in the downtown area must be brown- bagging it to save a buck or two during these pressing economic times. That can be the only reason that Karlene's Deli & Bakery in The Jacksonville Landing isn't booming with lunchtime business.

When you finally get tired of the same old heat-it-up Lean Cuisine or the traditional PB&J, my advice is to check out Karlene's for an affordable and flavorful lunch.

Karlene's at the Landing offers breakfast, lunch and dinner. For some reason, Jacksonville isn't a breakfast town - hence no sidewalk bagel vendors set up around packed office buildings. But those pioneers who are living in downtown now have a place to eat breakfast on Saturday and Sunday.

But lunch is where I set my sights. I stopped by three days recently and was impressed with each visit.

The Tuscany Panini ($6.99) is grilled chicken breast, roasted red peppers, pesto mayo, fresh spinach and pepper jack cheese served on what looks like grill-pressed Texas Toast. I found the sandwich appetizing and light. Sometimes paninis can be very dense because of the bread. This wasn't the case here. The spinach added a crunchy texture. I opted to spend an extra 99 cents and have the potato salad. It was creamy and melted in my mouth. The potatoes were properly cooked through, so that I wasn't eating a raw potato, as is the case with many potato salads. There's a hint of green onion that's subtle rather than being an omnipresent ingredient.

The Oriental Chicken Grilled Wrap ($6.69) was another dish worth stepping out of the office to enjoy. It was grilled chicken, mixed greens, purple cabbage, tomatoes and mandarin oranges topped with almonds and served wrapped in a grilled spinach tortilla dressed with sesame ginger dressing. There's a lot going on here, but the wrap isn't a jaw-unhinging monster. It's restrained. I found myself looking for the almond crunch and was happy when it appeared.

The made-in-house chips are hard and crunchy. They aren't brittle and thin like commercial chips. I wish they had a bit more flavor, but a shake of salt from the table, and they were quite tasty.

This is what I like about Karlene's. It would be so much easier to just offer a bag of Lay's or even an upscale brand of manufactured chips. Instead, they do it themselves to give the customer a reason to eat there.

The deli has a selection of burgers, including the Karlene's Steak Burger ($7.99), which is a half-pound of ground steak with all of the trimmings. I wanted to get a taste of Karlene's turn on the burger and ordered the Sliders ($4.99). The meat is cooked through to well done and is dressed with ketchup, mustard and a pickle. The bun is steamed soft, and the two Sliders are carefully garnished so that every bite doesn't demand a napkin to safeguard your tie or blouse.

The Hand-Pulled BBQ Pork ($6.79) is a filling pork barbecue sandwich. While it didn't disappoint, the next time I want barbecue I'll head to one of the many places in town that specialize in smoked meats. I wish I had tried yet another one of the specialty sandwiches or grilled wraps because Karlene's is offering something other places are not.

A midday dessert is a treat and a bit of decadence, but the three-layer Red Velvet Cake ($5.99) was big enough to share with two or three people or to box up and eat later that evening. The creamed cheese icing has a tart pleasing bite to it.

This space in the Landing has been most recently a New Orleans-themed restaurant. It was even a sports bar for a brief time. It is odd that a deli would have a full-liquor license, but Karlene's does and offers weekday happy hour specials from 4 to 10 p.m.

The good thing for those of you who don't make your way downtown: There are Karlene's Delis in San Jose, Bartram Park and Jacksonville Beach - check out the Web site for addresses as well as for the opportunity to order for delivery (minimum order for delivery is $15).

What I enjoyed most about my lunch experience at Karlene's is that the flavorful offerings didn't put me in a post-lunch coma. There's much to be said for a place that pleases the taste buds while invigorating you for the second half of your workday.

[Wacca Pilatka]

I went to Karlene's twice when I was in town in April.  I had the Oriental chicken wrap once and a burger the other time.  I was pleased with both, especially the wrap, and enjoyed the chips also.  The desserts looked appealing.  The sweet tea was first-rate.

[urbanlibertarian]

Been once for lunch.  Very nice.

[jaxlore]

went today had a hummus and spinach wrap, was good stuff, they need an extra servers, if any more people would have been there we would have never gotten the check.

[fsujax]

Went there yesterday for lunch (Downtown location). The service was prompt and friendly. the American Burger was really good. I will be back.

[JaxNole]

I hope the service issues (timeliness, order correctness, attentiveness, not yelling at employees) are quickly resolved and can be chalked up to new operations.

A first impression to someone who decided to give a Landing venue a chance would probably view the experience as off-putting and yet another waste of a 30-minute drive from the Westside.

[Southbanker]

I hope the service issues (timeliness, order correctness, attentiveness, not yelling at employees) are quickly resolved and can be chalked up to new operations.

A first impression to someone who decided to give a Landing venue a chance would probably view the experience as off-putting and yet another waste of a 30-minute drive from the Westside.

Like most things at the Landing, this place is just OK.  The food is average and the service has ranged from good to poor depending on who I got.

But I hope they are successful because I do like stopping by for a beer and snack on the weekend when I am out on a walk or bike ride.  It is a good place to have a beer while looking out onto the street and the freak show that is downtown Jax!  Decent TV placement too.

And one of the girls that works the bar seems really nice.  Can't remember her name.

[thelakelander]

This place is closed.

• Speaking of the Landing, Karlene’s closed last week. No word as to why.

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/citynotes.php

[ChriswUfGator]

Speaking of the Landing, Karlene’s closed last week. No word as to why.

[/quote]

Why? A: Because the service sucked donkey balls, and B: Because it's at the Landing, so what do you really expect?

[fsujax]

Good God!!!!.....will there ever be stability at the Landing? The location where Karlenes was located, should not have been walled off from the inside of the Landing. I never had poor service there and the food wasn't that bad. Just because something is at the Landing doesn't mean it has to be a failure.

[Doctor_K]

Are the rents at the Landing prohibitively high?  That, and the overall perception of the Landing as it is around town, would probably cause the demise of most places that tried to open up.

Yet, the toy store and American Cafe are still there (Hooters is a given, let's face it).  Kudos to them, whatever they're doing.

[ChriswUfGator]

Just because something is at the Landing doesn't mean it has to be a failure.

I agree with you...in theory. But in practice, it doesn't seem to work.

I still think COJ's asinine grid of 1-way streets that were implemented in order to handle an amount of traffic that downtown hasn't had in 50 years, and probably will never have in the future, along with COJ's ubiquitous "No Parking" and heavily patrolled metered zones, has a lot more to do with the never-ending failure of the Landing than anything else. And is also responsible for our largely dead downtown, for that matter.

Other cities have 2 and 3 hour parking, or just outright unrestricted parking. And they don't seem to self-destruct, with mayhem and bedlam running loose, as the City's arguments always seem to imply. I think COJ is really strangling its own downtown with parking policies, over-active enforcement, and asinine traffic flow management.

Bring back 2-way streets except for Union and State (only ones where 1-way is actually necessary), and take out all parking meters and just put a time limit like 3 hours on all public spots. That will prevent office workers from tying up public spots all day, but wouldn't strangle the merchants trying to make a buck downtown. Win-win for everybody.

But as it sits, the traffic flow patterns makes it a long pain in the ass to get where you're going downtown, and then when you get there you have to keep running back to your car every hour, or just add the $15 cost of the ticket onto what you paid for lunch and call it the cost of doing business. It's a hassle, and a real impediment to attracting people to go down there.

Of course, as with everything else, I think you can follow the $$$$ trail on this one. I bet they make a bank on parking fines, so naturally COJ wants everything to stay as-is.

[tufsu1]

Karlene's failed because they didn't have their act together on Day One....as noted here, Hooters and American Cafe do just fine....Cinco DeMayo see to be doing good business....and I'm willing to bet that Chicago Pizza also does well.

This has very little to do with The Landing and more to do with the fact that, nationally, most new restaurants that aren't chains fail within 2 years.

[Seraphs]

CLOSED?!  Option out, another one bites the dust.  I had planned to eat there.

[urbanlibertarian]

Seems like the restaurants at the Landing do better when they have a river view.  Maybe that spot needs to be retail.